StarCross'd Soldiers
by MidnightSun61
Summary: Castiel comes from the prominent Milton family in the pre-Civil War South. Then he meets a rebel soldier named Dean Winchester, and everything suddenly changes. AU Destiel.
1. Prologue

Journal of Bobby Singer

November 12, 1871

The Milton family plantation house used to stand proudly on the thick copse of willow trees down in the valley. Mist used to rise up from Lake Ophleonas and surround Churchstand like a ghostly white shawl, making it look like a specter out of a frightening tale. Legend holds firm that the house itself was haunted, but I can't help but feel it was the other way around.

At least, so it was for the poor Miltons.

Now, I don't have any sympathy for the parents. Chuck and Becky kept those kids on far too tight a leash. That house was their cage. And when you hold someone so young as they once were in a cage for so long, they're bound to break the walls of that cage and hit the ground running. And when you hit the ground running in a place as frightening as the real world, well, you don't stand much of a chance. You were bound to fall on your ass. And if you were unlucky enough to be a Milton kid, they didn't help you back to your feet and forget about it.

They turned their back on you and left you to wallow on the cold ground in your sin.

Eventually, all seven of the Milton younguns broke bad. Michael, the eldest, who raised the other six almost singlehandedly, for God's sake, ran off at twenty-seven after his twin (whose name was actually Lucifer, if you'd believe it) was disowned for trying to manipulate the old man for his cotton business. If you don't acknowledge the irony in that, then what the hell is irony? I sure don't know.

Anna, the next in age, a beautiful fiery wisp of a thing, was banished after she eloped to Canada with a slave boy. She never did come back, and for all I know she might not even be alive. Uriel, the man's name was. Good lad, I thought, and that Anna girl sure loved him, but what's the opinion of a crazy old coot such as myself worth in this crazy mixed-up world?

Gabriel went off with a group of his buddies (he always was a popular kid) to California to seek their fortunes. Went for the gold strike, they did. Gained a pretty penny, so I heard, and the parents were happy as meadowlarks. Lost it all gambling, and his parents sang quite a different tune. He came crying back to them, and they locked the door on him. He sat there on the porch for three days before he left and got a job at Robbison's, that candy shop he always used to haunt back when he had all the money in the world. He didn't have no other place to go, so I let him stay with me and Karen.

Rachel dreamed of making something of herself. She didn't believe in slavery and she didn't want to get married to someone who inevitably did. She dreamed of moving to the north and becoming a doctor. Instead, she disguised herself as a man and fought alongside the Unionists. She was killed in action. The Miltons didn't claim her body and she was buried in an anonymous soldier's cemetery. To my knowledge, no one ever visited her grave. Honestly, they probably never found her even if they tried. I looked myself, didn't like thinking about the concept that a poor brave girl like her would rot in a hole, unwanted, unloved, for the rest of eternity, even if her soul was worlds away. But I never did find her grave, and Michael or Gabe or Cas probably never did either, even if they did look.

Balthazar was a drunk. Lord knows his family had problems, and the poor boy turned to the bottle. I don't even blame him. He had no other place to go, though. He once told me he was waiting for the old man to die so he'd get his share of the inheritance money. With it, he planned on going to Europe and taking Cas with him.

Castiel was Chuck and Becky's pet. He was polite, quiet, serious. He always had this solemn look on his face, like he was contemplating the world's problems every hour of the day. Eventually, he was the only kid left living at home. At seventeen, he didn't have much of a choice.

And then the war came.

Gabe and Balthazar joined right away. Now, Chuck Milton despised the war effort. He believed in slavery, but he was too a coward himself to fight, and so he claimed killing others was against his religion. To back up his story, he wouldn't allow his children to join the army. Since Gabe was already officially out of the family, he went with no qualms, and I went with him. I didn't believe in owning other human beings, still don't, never will, but the South is my home, what's left of it now. The South is part of who I am. Of course I would fight for her side, as did Gabe, who was disgusted by the mere idea of slavery.

Balthazar, however, caused a veritable riot.

His friends, friends of my own as well, down at Harvelle's Roadhouse had his back, hid him behind the bar when Mr. Milton and his followers, attracted to a strong voice of power like a bear to a honeycomb, went mobbing through the streets of Dustin, searching for the lad to publicly humiliate him. Naturally, they wouldn't dare soil their spotless boots and reputations by setting a single holy foot through Ellen and Jo's house of sin and foul drink, even if they were probably at least suspicious the target would be there. The boy was, after all, helplessly lost in the bottle.

Anyway, he came to my house that night, distraught and drunker than Old Man LeThropp at the Christmas festival the year I was still a boy and didn't yet know what the term "streaker" referred to.

"Cas," he slurred. "Stuh in 'ah goh'am 'ouse wid 'ose buggers, 'ose fil'hy, na'hy buggers . . ." He sobbed, leaning his red, tear-soaked face into my doorframe. "I can' ee'en _do_ any'ing abou' ih!"

"He's gonna be fine, boy," I told him, even though I had doubts myself. "Now come on in here outta that cold, you'll catch your death."

And so the two brothers came to stay with me and my wife until we left for war. I assured them everything would be fine in the end, and after we came home, Castiel would have already come of age to make his own decision as to where he would live. He seemed a strong enough creature, and so he would probably have gotten himself a job. If he chose to stay with his family, well, that was his bed, he could lie in it, but Karen and I would readily welcome him with open arms if he had nowhere else to turn.

None of us figured that the boy would be banished himself, and for loving a man.

Now, Dean Winchester was one of the finest, most honest citizens I've ever had the pleasure of calling a good friend. And I love Gabe and Balthazar, and by now I consider them my un biological children, but Dean was actually my godson. He came from a fine line of hard workers who didn't have much money but thrived on their love for life and one another. Perhaps that sounds awfully cheesy; in fact, it does. But I say it because it's God's honest truth, and I do my best to speak the truth when given the opportunity.

John Winchester was my best friend growing up. His wife, Mary, was Karen's best friend. They grew up next door to each other. After Mary died from birthing Sam, their second, Karen just shut herself up in our room, wouldn't come out for two days. John tried killing himself and fortunately failed. Karen and I helped him raise Dean and Sam right, like we would have raised our own if my sweet Karen had been capable of childbirth.

I'm sure whoever's reading this has figured for themselves by now that Castiel fell for Dean Winchester. And you're right. He really, really did. We all did. And I know Dean, and I know that he loved Castiel too.

A shame, the whole damn thing. A damn shame.


	2. Chapter 1

Journal of Castiel Milton

May 4, 1861

Elderly people call me quiet. As in "Look at the youngest Milton boy. What a polite young man. But so quiet. Oh, enjoy it, there are so few quiet ones these days. They all want to make their opinions known to the world. Huh, _opinions_! Imagine! What is the world _coming_ to when our youth start to express opinions! _Huh_!"

My peers think I'm strange. They call me Preacher's Boy and mainly keep their distance, unless they're in the mood to poke fun at those unlike their flock.

I am quiet. I am strange, I suppose. But mostly, I am just thinking. I think all the time, about everything. I think about my backwards family. Everyone thinks I am like my family, but I am not. I am not like my brothers and sisters, who want to strike out against authority and drink booze and fight battles and break the law and run away. I am not like my parents, who look down upon others who don't share their exact beliefs and wealthy circumstances and hate those of the colored race. I am myself.

I want to write.

I've known better than to ask my father's permission. How silly. He'd shoot me down before I had even begun to spread my wings.

So I write here, in this collection of paper sheets binded in plain black leather. It isn't much in the way of decoration, and I do rather like pretty things, but it's dull enough to camouflage in tree branches and small enough to wedge into floorboards. No one will ever see these words, and this is best, I'm sure. I'd hate to offend anyone.

Oh, I must go now. My mother beckons me to come help set the table.

(I hate eating with them. Since my siblings left, one by one, the eating room, usually so lively with arguments and laughter and heated debate, is dead and silent save for the noisy chewing made all the more excruciating by the hanging silence stuffing every corner of the room. They don't speak to me, don't even look at me, really. Never ask what I'm thinking, how my day was. They do not know me, and obviously don't care to know.

God, I hope no one reads this.)


	3. Chapter 2

That night, when the sounds of what remained of his family battling long into the small hours had begun to drive him beside himself, the youngest son snuck out of the house at bright stars hung heavy in the black satin sky. He found himself thinking that if he could only be one of the stars, then maybe he'd know where he belonged, even if he was the same as everyone else. Then again, he was already like everyone else, in his family at least. At least . . . that was how everyone he knew viewed him. As just the youngest Milton boy, nothing more. He shook the whimsical thoughts out of his troubled mind and awkwardly climbed down the rose trellis to the frosted ground below. His feet barely made a sound. When he looked behind him, the house remained quiet, undisturbed.

He had no destination in mind. He didn't have any friends outside of his family, and there weren't any places in town where he felt like himself. Not like his brother Gabriel had Robisson's Candy, or like his sister Rachel had the library.

Eventually, he found himself in the middle of the town square, Flicker's Mill, and the first building his eye caught hold of just happened to be Harvelle's Roadhouse. As he watched, the door flew open, and Messy Max Wilcox was thrown out into the night, cussing and laughing at the same time as his face hit the ground. The bouncer huffed bullishly before turning on his heel and reentering the saloon.

Castiel had never been inside this particular alcohol establishment, himself. He had never dared. His father would have a veritable fit, his mother would weep at his feet. This was a place known to be a beloved haunt of criminals and lushes. But he was a grown man, after all. Well, almost. Anyway, he had been growing more and more weary of the day-to-day drama his family wrought onto his life.

And so, with head held high, he crossed the street and kicked the mud from the road off his boots onto the sidewalk and entered the infamously low-class bar. He had to duck a lightly-thrown punch from a well-meaning but disoriented Max Wilcox.

To his surprise, the first person he saw in the room was his brother Balthazar, sitting with some pretty young thing, a girl with blonde hair and a blue work dress. Both had lit cigarettes loosely dangling in their hands. Balthazar reached for the jug of something or other in the girl's other hand but the girl shook her head, pulling it away. Castiel's brother frowned, reaching a second time, a bit more aggressively, and this time the girl reacted sharply. She lifted the pitcher and poured its contents over Balthazar's already-drunk head. It seemed to sober him immediately, or at least enough to bring him back to himself. He got off of the barstool he had previously occupied and shuffled to a table in the corner of the room, trance-like.

Castiel had just begun to move towards his brother's direction when he felt a hand gently grip his wrist.

"Hey there." He turned to find himself face to face with a young man with warm green eyes and dirty blonde hair. Castiel thought there was a sort of a soldier countenance about the man. He couldn't be either much older or younger than Castiel himself, but his posture was perfection itself. The young man wore a gray cotton button-down and a smile. "Would you like a drink, sir?"

Sir? "Ah . . . I . . ." Castiel had never drank anything but wine at fancy family gatherings, and he hadn't even liked it very much. And he had certainly never taken drinks from complete strangers. "What's your name?"

The man chuckled. "Dean. Dean Winchester. And yours?"

Castiel was a bit taken aback by this. Everyone in town knew every single one of the noble-blooded Miltons. But he had definitely never seen this handsome young man before. He would have remembered him. For a moment, he pondered walking away, or giving this Dean Winchester some false name. But then he thought of his loneliness, a thing he had found was quite easy to ignore since he had always known loneliness and nothing else; after all, does a man born blind feel nostalgia for his lost sight? Does a woman born without hearing wish for audio senses? He had always been friendless, and so he had never wished for friends. But here was an opportunity to possibly be who he thought he was around another living soul.

And so he said, "My name is Castiel."

Dean's eyebrows and the corners of his lips lifted. "Yeah? That sounds like poetry, Cas. D'you mind if I call you Cas? Y'know, as a nickname?"

Castiel suddenly felt an odd sensation he had never yet experienced in his life. He didn't know what this new feeling was, but he wanted it. He desired it, now that he knew it for himself, and he would never be satisfied if he wasn't feeling it.

"Cas?"

Castiel snapped himself quickly out of his strangely wonderful reverie with a smile that combatted the most beautiful of angels in the heavens. "Yes! Cas, Castiel, it's all the same to me. I-I mean, I actually like Cas better because you said it first. _I_-_I_ didn't mean that, what I just said. _Gosh_. Uh, I mean, yes. Yeah, uh-huh. You should-you _can_ call me Cas, yes."

Dean chuckled. "Adorable."

"Ah, um . . ."

"It's okay. A drink or two will help you, my friend." Dean winked and guided Cas towards the bar.

However, Castiel's new floaty feeling did not last long before it was shot down, and not by a Cupid's arrow.

"Castiel?"

Castiel turned towards Balthazar's voice, wincing. His brother looked more surprised to see him than anything else. "What are you doing here? You're underage."

"I am not," his brother replied, stiffening. "I am seventeen years old."

"Yeah, since when?" Balthazar asked, unbelieving.

"Since October."

Balthazar paused. An odd expression crossed over his face before he ran his hand over it. "Oh. Right, of course. Sorry, Castiel, I . . . I haven't really been . . . around much, you know?"

"Yes, I know." Indeed, his father's upraised voice and his brother's fists pounding into walls had done a large part in keeping Castiel awake plenty of nights.

"Excuse me," Dean said to Balthazar. "But do you know that girl?" He gestured towards the girl in blue. "It's just that I saw you, ah, talking to her before." He smiled.

"Oh, _her_." Balthazar made a face. "Bah. I wish you nothing but good luck with her, pal. Her name is Joanna, and she's the owner's daughter. She's hardheaded as a mule, as far as I can tell. I like a, shall we say, _faster_ type of female, myself." A pair of giggling girls strolled by, leaving behind a trail of gaseous perfume. Castiel stifled a cough. "Now, if you'll excuse me." With that, Balthazar took off, holding a half-filled glass he had pulled seemingly out of nowhere above the heads of the other patrons.

Never taking his eyes off the girl, Dean smiled at Castiel. "C'mon, Cas, let's get that drink."

Castiel tried his best to smile back, but for some reason that somehow frustrated him, he didn't get the Feeling again, just disappointment.

"Hey there, can I buy you a drink?" Dean said to the girl, the same thing he'd said to Cas. Castiel felt a short pain in his abdomen. He unvoluntarily held a hand to his chest, right over his heart, unaware that it had just broken for the first time.

The girl's face didn't change as she looked Dean Winchester up and down. "No, but feel free to buy yourself one."

"Actually," he said, wrapping an arm around his new friend's shoulders, "I just thought I'd buy one for this good-lookin fella instead."

Castiel's heart fluttered hopefully in his chest. He felt his cheeks warm.

To his surprise, the girl named Joanna was staring at his face intently now. Her features seemed to soften. She smiled gently at him, and his cheeks warmed even further.

"What's your name, honey?" she asked him softly.

"C-Castiel."

"Milton, right?" She nodded. "You're Balthazar's younger brother." She made a face in said man's direction. "He comes in here all the time, he's . . ." She glanced at Cas and cut herself off. "Well, he certainly likes to drink. But go ahead, hon, drink up. Just don't hurt yourself like your brother does." She pointedly looked at Dean. "And don't let him talk you into anything stupid."

"Talk me into anything? What do you mean?" Castiel asked innocently.

Dean laughed. "She doesn't want me to get you into any trouble. Well, I can't say that I was planning on it, but now . . . I'm gettting ideas."

"Oh, you're getting _ideas_, Lord help us all." Jo held up her hands, puffed out her cheeks, pantomined fainting.

Just then, a woman with dark hair, a weary face, and warm eyes emerged from the back room. The first person her eye caught was her daughter Jo, as always. She always worried after Jo. The second was a young man with nearly black hair and startling eyes that she could tell from even this distance were blue. Beside him was a slightly taller young man with dirty blonde hair and . . . didn't he look a little like . . .?

She made her way to the bar, leaning her chin on her daughter's shoulder from behind. "Hey, Jo, how are we holding up?" She looked up, pretending to notice Dean for the first time. "Hey! You look familiar!"

"So do you." He smiled. She nodded, just slightly, almost imperceptibly. She glanced at Jo and realized she was still in the dark. That was best.

"Are you related to a . . . a John Winchester? A Mary?"

"Yeah, I'm Dean Winchester. They're my parents." Something flashed in his eyes, just barely, but Ellen noticed it and understood that her old friends were dead. Then Dean smirked at Jo. "And I take it this lovely young lady is your daughter. And quite a lady. She dumped a whole pitcher of beer over some guy's head."

"My brother," Cas said, unable to stop himself. He bit the inside of his cheek.

"And who are you, young man?" Ellen asked him kindly.

"This is my buddy Cas," Dean said proudly, giving his shoulder a a squeeze. How many times would Castiel blush tonight?

The same expression Jo had had looking at Cas for the first time crossed Ellen's face then. "Oh, I see." She smiled and winked at Cas. "I've been there, sweetheart, cherish it." With that, she turned and started back towards the back room. "Oh, and, eh, Dean, ain't it? Could I see you in the back about something?"

Dean nodded knowingly, pushing open the half-door seperating the patrons from behind the bar, ignoring Joanna's puzzled look. He was grateful when she didn't say anything.

She rested her elbow on the bar, put her chin in her hand, and blew a strand of blonde hair that had broke free of her ponytail out of her eyes. After a minute of forgetting he was there, she looked over at Castiel. "I don't understand what you see in that fella, Cas."

"I-I've really only just met him," Cas said shyly. After a minute of hemming, hawing, and blushing in awkwardness, Castiel blurted defensively, "But he does seem very nice, doesn't he?"

Joanna glanced over her shoulder. Through a the small window in the door leading to the back room, she could see the man in question standing over the worktable across from her mother. Their hands were spread out on its face, and they stared down intently at something. At one point, Dean stepped back from the table, slamming his hand down on top of it. Ellen threw her hands into the air, saying something, and after a pause, Dean looked again and the staring resumed.

"He's a whole lotta something, I'll say that," she said, although she wasn't really sure what she thought of Dean Winchester either. She and Castiel had this in common. The two of them sat there, merely sitting and appreciating the fact that they weren't alone, for a while. No more words were spoken between them there, and none were necessary.

Finally, the back room door opened and Dean and Ellen reemerged, Dean with a rolled up piece of paper tucked into his back pocket. He looked nervous about something, but he was smiling, too. Ellen just looked relieved. And upset. She wrapped an arm around Joanna's shoulder. "Pour me a tall one, Jo," she said with a yawn. "I plan to get very drunk tonight."

Instead of asking questions like she wanted to, Jo obeyed her mother and gave her a Bloody Mary on the ice. Ellen lifted up and smiled at all three of them.

"To Dean Winchester, and all of those who come before and after him." She emptied the glass with one long drink, and slid the shot around to her daughter. "Another, please."

Cas was surprised when he looked over and saw Dean staring intently at his shoes.

Just then, there was shouting and the flash of torches bobbing up and down in the street. From where she sat, Jo could see the old Jewish man's shop across the street being kicked in forcefully.

"Oh no," she mumbled. "They're at it again."

Without pause, Ellen pursed her lips and made a beeline for Balthazar, who was semiconsciously half-lying on the floor, half-leaning against the wall in a corner, two pretty girls giggling nervously and fanning him with their hair-kerchiefs. Ellen grabbed him none too gently under the armpits and dragged him into the backroom, shutting the door behind him. Castiel's brother was too drunk to resist.

"What?" Castiel asked fearfully. "What's going on?"

"Oh, your father," Ellen said with an impatient smack of her teeth and a roll of her eyes. "Lord above. He sends out his clan or what have you to find where that boy goes at night. They've _got_ to know he's here. Where else would he be? But I guess we're too low down for them." She smirked. "Let's count that as a good thing."

But then a brick crashed through the front window.

A woman previously occupying a table with her husband of thirty years shrieked and leapt to her feet when she saw her husband keel to the floor, a head wound gushing blood mercilessly onto the hardwood.

"No!" the woman screamed. "Help him! Someone help him!" She shucked off her light coat and pressed it to her husband's temple, but he was already dead.

"Jo, go to the back," Ellen murmurred, her eyes panicking but her voice calm.

"But Mo-"

"Don't! Don't. Go now."

Joanna Harvelle stared at her mother for a tense second before turning on her heel and disappearing behind the same door as Balthazar just had.

"Dean, you have your duties. I don't know if I'll see you again before you leave, so-" She stuck out her hand, her eyes pleading for him to take it. He did. "You just be careful, boy. Do your daddy and mama proud."

He nodded, feeling the sting of water behind his eyes. He choked the feeling down and grinned.

"Thank you, ma'am. I'll do what I can." With reluctance, he released the grip of his godmother. "C'mon, Cas, let's get out of here."


	4. Chapter 3

And so the two young men ran out into the chilly night from the back door of the Roadhouse. Dean didn't realize he had taken his companion's hand; it was a simple protective instinct taken from years of taking care of Sammy and their half-brother Adam before Bobby and Karen Singer had come to their rescue. But Castiel felt heat rise into his cheeks, warming his skin and making his heart race in the most pleasant way imaginable.

Well, at least until he heard someone yell, "Hey, isn't that Milton's youngest?" Footsteps and angry shouting followed close at their heels.

"This way," Dean panted, tugging the Milton behind the wall of the Flicker's Mill Public Library. The law of gravity sent Cas sprawling into Dean's chest.

Their eyes met, and lingered, the two young men trapped in place, neither willing nor apparently able to break the spell of the other's eyes; tiny blue-green threads may have weaved the two gazes together for all time, it cannot be ascertained. Either way, two soulmates truly saw each other for the first time.

Finally, Dean chuckled to break the intense silence between them. He realized there was still shouting and chaos going on in the street beyond them. He wondered how he could have forgotten.

"You must know your way around here, Cas. You know somewhere we can go?"

"Yes, I know a place." Castiel ducked farther down the dark alley, thankful that his friend could not see the dusty rose complexion he wore high in his cheeks. "Follow me."

The only sound that could be heard this deep in town was the crunch of their boots on the dirty plank sidewalk. Soon, they came out into another street, and Castiel stopped in front of a looming church, the sight of which was as terrifying as any cautionary tale of doom and hellfire. A black iron-wrought fence kept unsavory company from getting in, a hypocrisy by design. The nest of some bird rustled in the wind in the belltower.

"This is the only place you know?" Dean asked, looking over his shoulder at the deserted street. A curtain in the window of one of the street's houses fell shut, catching his eye, heightening his rapidly growing unease. "I know churches are supposed to be a place of refuge, but this looks more like a prison."

Castiel stiffened. "I know what it looks like, Mr. Winchester, but I assure you, it is perfectly safe. I was practically raised here."

"Alright, alright. Don't get touchy, kid." He grinned, taking the boy by the arm. "Come on."

Castiel told himself to relax, that this was a perfectly normal thing to be doing on a Friday evening, hiding out from your own family with a basic stranger in a creepy looking church. They tiptoed past the pews, as if walking too loudly over the creaking floorboards might awaken some vengeful, hymnbook-clutching spirit.

"How old are you, anyway?" Dean asked, trying to break the tense silence.

Cas sighed. "Seventeen."

"Oh, that's right. You're a bit young to be, ah, traipsing around town with an escaped criminal."

Castiel's mouth fell open and he looked at Dean as if for the first time. "Excuse me, what?"

Dean smirked and shook his head. "Just go home now, kid, I'll be alright." He started towards the altar.

Panic filled the boy. "Wait!" Castiel refrained from covering his mouth with his hands. Dean turned and looked at him. "Wait. What did you do?"

"What _didn't_ I do?" Dean's cocky grin was a mask that kept him from getting hurt, but it wasn't like Cas knew that.

"You tell me." Cas crossed his arms over his chest, surprised at the calm he felt.

Dean stared at him a moment longer, as if sizing him up, before stepping close enough to contemplate the contents of his last meal. He leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "Well, for starters, I didn't do-" His lips moved lower, below his ear, feathering over his collarbone. "-_this._"

Cas shuddered, startled, his breath leaving him quickly and softly, like the sound of birds falling. "Oh, please-" he gasped.

"Please what?" Dean whispered wickedly, the vibration against Castiel's bared skin sending chills up and down his spine. He gingerly touched the palm of his hand to the back of Cas's neck, making the boy jump.

"I-I . . . I don't know." Castiel swallowed hard, trembling and trying not to show it. For the first time in his life, he felt an uncomfortable shift in his trousers. He didn't know enough about these things to be shameful of it or to try and hide it, and Dean Winchester smirked.

"No, but I do." He lowered himself to his knees, holding himself up by Cas's hips. Green eyes never broke from the blue. "If this is what you want."

"What are you doing?"

Without answering with words, Dean gently ran his fingertips over Cas's erection, making the boy moan and double over.

"I . . . _Yes_! Yes, this is what I want!" He forced his eyes open, his hips bucking unvoluntarily into Dean's hand.

The criminal stood up, and Castiel started to whine in protest of the loss of friction, but then the man was touching him and, oh, God, he couldn't even remember his own _name_ but he didn't care because he had never felt this damned good. Then, before he knew it, Dean had picked him up bridal-style and carried him to the altar.

"I now pronounce you man and wife," Dean chuckled huskily, laying the younger man down.

Like an offering, Castiel thought.

Then they were touching again and nothing else mattered.


End file.
